So I’m in Starbucks today, and I spot a CD sitting on the counter (is it me, or is Starbucks a coffee shop that really wants to be a record store?). This is apparently the acoustic-version, tenth anniversary compilation of Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill. Now, if you’re my age, and an American female with a certain cultural background, this is the most important CD in your life (for boys, I think it might be Sublime). Oh, the hours I spent shouting along with poor, angry Alanis. Thinking back on it, I barely even knew what going down on someone in a theater was. So it’s been ten years since that album came out? How time doth fly.
So, back to the topic at hand. If you’ve been following the comments section on the previous post (and, as Theresa Nielsen Hayden says, the comments are half the fun) you’ll see that we’ve already followed a few topics. I also thought I’d begin with the ones I mentioned in my intro post. So, without further ado, or reminiscences into my adolescent musical tastes:
WHEN GOOD ADVICE GOES BAD
Try Not To Use Passive Voice
First, a quick review of that lovely quagmire known as English grammar. Which of the following is passive voice?
a) Sailor Boy hit the ball.
b) The ball hit Sailor Boy.
c) The ball was hit by Sailor Boy.
Easy, right? Now, one can imagine that this is very good advice at the outset, because passive voice is often used to deflect agency from the person doing the action. It focuses on the object. Picture a child telling his parents about how the glass just “got bumped” off the table. Kids trying to get out of trouble are experts at passive voice. Beginning writers sometimes fall back on it for the same reason: it lets their characters off the hook from actually having to do anything. Which, as one can imagine, doesn’t work so well in fiction.
However, the passive voice has a long and glorious history in fiction of being used to create suspense. When someone has been shot, when a mysterious letter is left on a table, when you awaken to find that a bloody horse’s head was tucked between your bedsheets — well then, that’s all passive voice. Who did it? Ah, there’s the rub. So by all means, one should not completely eschew this perfectly reasonable grammatical construction.
The problem comes in here. If one looks at my above examples of passive construction, the same word keeps popping up: forms of “to be”. In English, the passive voice is constructed using forms of the verb to be plus a participle. “Has been shot” “is left,” “was tucked,” etc. Enterprising individuals with, perhaps, a less than perfect grasp of English grammar then seized upon the lofty and noble “to be” as the culprit of all “passive construction” and sought to excise it from their (and other people’s) work.
The damage is twofold because of a another, similar-sounding piece of advice, which goes like this: Try Not To Use A Passive Voice. In this case, the advice giver might have been attempting, somewhat clumsily, to encourage writers to embrace strong verbs. “Passive voice” is co-opted from its grammatical usage as a stand-in for the opposite of “an aggressive writer’s voice.” This is the same family of advice that urges you to say “race” rather than “ran quickly” and to rewrite sentences to exclude “to be” and “make/do” verbs (i.e., rather than “Sailor Boy was happy because Diana made him fried chicken for dinner,” to use “Sailor Boy could hardly suppress his glee when Diana served him fried chicken that night”). It’s stronger writing. This advice giver might have saved us all a lot of trouble had she said “weak writing”. Or perhaps she did, and it has since somehow collided with the perfectly innocent “passive voice” to create a mutated monster.
However the evolution of the beast, the fact remains that plenty of us have received feedback on contests in which some red pen-happy judge has crossed out every single “had,” “was,” “have been,” and etc. In the entire manuscript in the never-ending quest “not to use passive voice.” How I have been tempted (yep, passive voice, and I can only assume it was the devil tempting me) to write in my thank you note to such a judge that “Jane was dying” is past continuous tense, not passive voice, and there is a huge freakin’ difference between “Jane was dying” and “Jane died.”
So, should one use passive voice? Should one use “was?” I say yes to both, sparingly, sprinkled like Fleur de Sal, and only where it is the best choice for the manuscript. Trying to build suspense? You bet. Trying to keep it snappy? Sure, why not? Trying to make it unclear who it was that did what in the midst of a melee? Passive voice has got your back. And please, don’t cut all the “was” out of your manuscript if it means killing off poor Jane, who should live to fight another day.
September 27th, 2005 at 9:47 am
Oooo very nice! Well put!
I used to hunt and destroy all the ‘was’ (how do you pluralize was? Is it wases?) and then I realized all the pubbed fic I read used it. So I’ve relaxed and just let myself write, using ‘was’ whenever it seems to fit.
I think this advice could be better stated as:
Have variety in your sentence structure. Most newbies overuse was and were too much.
I see a lot of newbies do this:
It was hot. His t-shirt was red and it was soaked with sweat. There were children playing in the distance.
In the example above, seeking to write out the was and the weres would be good advice. But once a writer understands how to avoid ‘to be’and why, they can then begin to use was/were again.
M
September 27th, 2005 at 10:40 am
I agree, M. I think a lot of these pieces of advice should always come with qualifiers like “unless you know what you’re doing.” But still, I think even if you are following these rules, it helps to know exactly what it is that the rule is saying.
September 27th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Thanks! I have been wondering about this. MY Cp’s (I love them) beat me up about any was I use. Also show don’t tell. And the occasional ly word.
Sometimes you have to tell not show cause you don’t have the word count to show every single happening. Sometimes an ly word says it more concisely than anything else could and sometimes you just have to use was cause everything else would be stupid.
I have taken to telling them not to touch that LY word in my manuscript. I write, She finished her icecream thoughtfully and then put in caps LEAVE THAT ONE ALONE, I LIKE IT!
They think I’m a hoot.
Thanks for saying what I have been thinking:)
Teri
September 27th, 2005 at 11:02 am
Teri, my dear, I must confess that you will not be finding an ally in me regarding the use of adverbs. Was it Stephen King or Mark Twain who said the road to Hell is paved in adverbs? No matter. I concur with both. I think adverbs are like exclamation points; they ought to be rationed to achieve the greatest effect.
Which is not to say “never”. Moderation in all things. Some “wases,” as M would say, a couple of adverbs, a bit of passive voice here and there. A lot of the “good advice gone bad” concerns perfectly rational points taken to the extreme. See? There’s an adverb for you.
I think in this case I’d wonder how someone could eat ice cream thoughtfully. Does she have concern for the ice cream’s well-being? If is she thinking while she is eating the ice cream, which is more likely, then the adverb “thoughtfully” inappropriately modifies “eat”. What is thoughful here is “she,” not the manner in which she is eating, right? Tough to tell without seeing the context.
September 27th, 2005 at 11:29 am
I used to glom on to rules like “don’t use passive voice” as a way to not write. I would nitpick and screw around with paragraphs for hours, and wonder why my page count was so low. So what I had to do was train myself to just write the damn book, then revise. Because it’s so easy to let the tree become the whole focus when the forest is the
thing. The hardest part of having tight deadlines is finding the space between finishing the first draft and giving the book a fresh read. Hm, I guess that doesn’t really address the passive voice, does it?
September 27th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Diana,
I’m so glad you picked this one first. I lurk on a certain writing forum peopled by both published and unpublished writers, as well as a few agents. The “advice” (and I use the term loosely) I read most often on the site encourages writers to eliminate all sentences containing passive verbs. Then most advisors will go on to highlight several sentences as examples. About half the time, these examples don’t showcase passive verbs at all. I think this confuses new writers, especially those who might not have any grammatical…um…training outside of highschool.
There’s a huge (HUGE) difference between passive verbs and passive (weak) writing, and I’m glad you explained it so well. Mind if I link to this blog entry next time the topic comes up in that forum?
September 27th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
I think the path to being the richest woman in the UK is paved with adverbs.
Just as the path to being on the NTY bestseller list is paved with characterisation so weak it’s almost negative.
But both cases just prove that the STORY is what’s important. Which was Jo’s point with the tree/forest analogy, which I loved.
September 27th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
Jo, I do the same thing as you. If I don’t feel like writing, I’ll decide that my last scene is chockers with weak verbs and go back and fiddle with it — for hours. Maybe I’ll end up keeping two of my supposedly “stronger” verbs. Procrastination can take many forms, and it seems the most justifiable when you are doing something “important” — like ostensibly strengthening what you already wrote. It’s a curse.
Rachel, I’m glad you liked it. Feel free to share anywhere — the blog’s a public space. I actually first gave the “passive voice speech” talk in 2003 at my local RWA chapter meeting as part of a “Grammar for Contest Judges” presentation. We wanted to avoid the kind of grammar issues that often arise in contest settings.
I have to admit, it bugs the heck out of me when I see “was” called “a passive verb”. Weak, I’ll give ‘em. Not descriptive, okay. But I think the reasoning gets muddled somewhere in there. I don’t think it’s “don’t use passive voice” so much as “don’t use it without reason, such as building suspense and obscuring agency.” I was recently reading a business writing brochure that encouraged the use of passive voice, since “the files were misplaced and the mailing date was delayed” sounds a bit better in the meeting than “My boss lost the reports and we missed the filing dates.” Ah, corporate doublespeak. Ain’t it grand?
September 27th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Natalie, I actually had to turn off Jim Dale several times in #6 to give my teeth an opportunity to unclench from all those adverbs. If you look at the earlier books, when her editors seemed to care, she was much better about them. I do love her books, but I am disappointed that the excessive adverb use takes me out of the story so often. (I think you notice it more in the audio, since she tends to add them onto dialogue tags, which “disappear” when reading.)
I think it’s simplistic to say that it’s any one “thing” that matters. Some writers are indeed on the NYT because their characters are so unforgettable. Others made it on their powerful prose. I think that all writers have their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. For some, it’s plot, for others, characterization, and for others, prose. Some lucky bastards are triple threats. Frickin’ Nabokov.
I tend to thinkt aht some of these guidelines came about as a means to help writers pinpoint the cause of problems in their story, and then evolved from there into “this is a problem.” Like headhopping. Headhopping qua headhopping isn’t a problem. But if it’s tough to identify with the characters, maybe it’s because the writer isn’t spending enough time in their POV, etc.
Maybe “It isn’t a problem unless it’s a problem.”
September 28th, 2005 at 6:33 am
Mark Twain said it about adverbs. Loved that quote. And so true, lol.
Getting rid of the passive voice is excellent advice!
September 28th, 2005 at 7:00 am
WILL YOU MARRY ME?? Um, sorry. Got a bit excited there when you defended the passive voice a li’l bit.
I’ve been posting to the FidoNet WRITING echo (which is now syndicated onto the Internet) over the past few YEARS about these “rules” and how they are wrongheaded. Authors Pamela Dean, Patricia C. Wrede, and Raphael Carter all agreed with me, which is why I kept believing. But recently people have been telling me about these “rules” again. More power to you for debunking them.
I have actually had occasion to argue on a long thread that “The tire was flat” is NOT passive voice. And that there’s not really another way to phrase it without getting into contortions. It’s natural to say it that way. Sometimes it’s idiomatic in English to say, “It was raining,” or “There was one ticket left,” even though there’s this “official proscription” against “There is” and “It was” in all the Sekrit Squirrel How-To-Write grimoires.
Mark Twain may have said adverbs do/don’t this or that, but he also said you’ve gotta find the precise word. It’s the diff between lightning and a lightning bug. If that word is an adverb, then so be it. In fact, were we to erase all adverbs, we could not indicate time. “Yesterday” and “Soon” are . . . yes . . . adverbs. (*GRIN*)
I say: long live the semicolon, the subjunctive mood (as if it were even an issue *grin*), and the adverbial tag–used sparingly and only when the dialogue would seem to imply the wrong attitude. (”I hate you,” she said sweetly. “Now, pass the salt.”) Although I venture to say that it has simply gone out of style, and that it’s sometimes pretty tough to “show” what the character is thinking or feeling through the action tags. Sometimes it’s just CLEARER to write, {She paused. “Maybe you’re right,” she said thoughtfully.} We all understand it, can picture the “thoughtful look on her face” in our own fashion or hear the tone of musing in her voice. It’s shorthand. A shortcut that writers of the past used. It could come back into style. But right now, it’s out of style, and that’s why we don’t want to do it. It’s not that it’s some kind of venial sin. Just a different way of doing things.
-ING words are our friends. You’re right: sometimes she’s turning, or he’s cranking furiously. It’s happening in the “now” of the story, not quite finished yet. Later, you can tell them when he finishes cranking and sits up, wiping his brow. GRIN
September 28th, 2005 at 9:50 am
She just learned something juice. She was eating the icecream while reflecting on that.
She finished her ice cream thoughtfully.
Or
She reflected on that little bit of information while finishing her ice cream.
She chewed on that while finishing her ice cream;-)
She mulled that over while finishing her ice cream.
Wait do young adults mull? LOL
And I completely agree that LY words should be used sparingly.
Hee.
September 28th, 2005 at 1:54 pm
No, I agree with you. I hate it when the “experts” say, “You shouldn’t head hop, unless you are Nora Roberts.” Oh, blah de blah blah blah. But I guess that’s easier than trying to say, “don’t do it unless you can do it so that it works and that your books rock anyway.”
Personally, though I don’t switch POVs because that’s not myw riting style, I don’t notice it when people do. I don’t notice it, I don’t care, I’d be hard pressed to point out writers who do it because it’s not even a blip on my radar screen. I DO notice it when I’m judging a contest entry and I can’t tell what head I’m in. But until I heard the phrase headhopping and heard it was a problem, I would just have called it crappy POV. BUt that’s something that I as a reader don’t care about or notice. As a reader I do notice adverbs. Some people notice neither. My mother, who isn’t a writer and has no intentions on being one,d oes notice POV.
Weird, huh?
September 28th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
LOL I’ve noticed lots of readers don’t notice or give a crap about stuff that drivers writer/readers batsh*t.
Great post diana and lots of great comments. I know as a reader I tend to throw down a book for stylistic reasons. Sometimes nothing I can directly pinpoint, but lazy writing is definitely a culprit (for a variety of reasons not just adverbs or passive writing etc.).
September 29th, 2005 at 2:05 am
Excellent articles, Diana.
*round of applause*
October 19th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
Another voice in the wilderness trying to preserve the actual meaning of “passive voice” — I nearly wept with joy.
Sometimes it’s lonely knowing English grammar.
June 29th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
I spent my entire junior year of high school not allowed to use the passive tense - I still live by it - que sorpresa encontrar esta tema aca!!!